Why So Many EVPs Sound The Same

So many EVPs sound the same because a lot EVP research asks the same boring questions.

You send out your survey. You ask about career development, work-life balance, innovation, collaboration. You get back data that says 'people value growth opportunities' and 'flexible working matters.' You workshop some themes. You land on something like 'Where talented people Thrive' or 'Innovation starts here.'

Congratulations, you've just spent three months discovering what literally every other company already claims. 🏆

The problem isn't your research methods (though some are better than others). The problem is you're researching the wrong things.

Why standard EVP research fails:

Most EVP research tries to identify what people value. That's fine for understanding general preferences, but terrible for building differentiation. Everyone values development. Everyone wants decent pay. Everyone appreciates flexibility.

Asking 'what do you value?' guarantees generic answers because people default to socially acceptable responses. No one admits they actually love the chaos, or that they stay because the work is genuinely interesting even if the processes are rubbish.

Worse, when you aggregate responses, you smooth out all the interesting edges. The thing that makes 15% of your people absolutely love working here gets buried under what 85% find 'quite good.'

What to research instead

Stop asking what people value. Start asking what's genuinely different here. Here are some examples of questions that actually matter:

• "What's something great about working here that also drives you slightly mad sometimes?" Every strength has a sacrifice. This exposes an authentic tension, not a sanitised version.
• "If you were headhunted tomorrow for 20% more money but the same role elsewhere, what would make you pause before saying yes (beyond "my colleagues")?" Gets past "competitive salary" and "the people" to what actually creates stickiness.
• "What's a decision that got made here in the last 6 months that would never have happened at your previous company?" Reveals actual cultural differences, not claimed ones.
• "Tell me about a project that failed or went sideways. What happened next?" How failure is actually handled vs. how the values poster says it's handled.
• "What do people who've just joined misunderstand about working here? What do they think it'll be like vs. what it's actually like?" The gap between perception and reality is where your distinctiveness lives.
• "Tell me about the last time you felt properly proud to work here. What specifically happened?" Forces specificity about what actually creates pride, not abstract "purpose"
• "Who's the most successful person here? What makes them successful in this environment specifically?" Exposes the actual success profile, not the one in the competency framework.
• "We've all seen talented people leave or not work out here. Without naming names, what pattern do you notice in the people who don't thrive?" The negative space tells you as much as the positive.
• "When did you go from 'this is a job' to 'I actually care about this place'? What changed?" Reveals the conversion moment and what creates genuine investment.
• "Complete this sentence: 'Working here is brilliant if you ________, but it's probably not for you if you ________.'" Forces people to define both the promise AND the reality check.
  

All of these questions force specificity, stories, and trade-offs rather than allowing people to retreat into corporate-speak or aspirational thinking. They reveal the weird, wonderful, or occasionally uncomfortable truths that make your place distinct. You're looking for the answers that make you go "oh, that's interesting..." not "yeah, we expected that."

I've seen companies discover their real EVP isn't about being 'the best place to work' but being the place where people who hate corporate bollotics (yes. I just made that word up 😁) can just get on with proper work. That's not sexy, but it's honest and it resonates with exactly the right people.

Going deeper than surveys

Surveys have their place for validation, but your breakthrough insights won't come from ticking boxes.

You need proper conversations. Small groups where people feel safe being honest. One-on-ones where you can probe beyond the first answer. Exit interviews where people finally tell you the truth.

You're looking for patterns in stories, not data points in spreadsheets. When three different people independently mention the same quirk about your culture, that's signal. When everyone uses slightly different words to describe the same underlying truth, you're onto something.

The courage to be specific

The hardest part of EVP research isn't the methodology. It's having the courage to be specific and distinctive rather than aspirational. I did this at Booksy by running an exercise with the Executive Leadership team that showed them, quite powerfully, how us and our competitors all sounded exactly the same. All being a place for, "passionate people". All saying, "We're the #1...". All claiming to be, "The most innovative..." 🙄 🥱

Your EVP might not be what you wish it was. You might discover you're not the innovative disruptor you claim to be. You might be the place where process-minded people thrive, or where misfits find their crowd, or where the work matters more than the perks. That's fine. Better to be honestly different than aspirationally identical to everyone else.

Because you know what? Generic EVPs attract generic candidates who'll leave when someone offers them £5k more. Specific EVPs attract people who genuinely fit, even if they're fewer in number.

I'd rather you hire 10 people who get it than 100 who liked the marketing.